The sluggard and the gospel ant

Fruitfulness = (A) Knowing the good + (B) Considering how to do it + (C) Doing it + (D) Divine action

We looked before at the Considering part. But the actually Doing it bit is important too. 

I always find the description of the sluggard in the book of Proverbs convicting. In particular I'm convicted that his problem is lack of implementation and fruitlessness.

"The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns…" [Prov. 15:19]

He knows the way but he's not walking in it. His procrastination has allowed the thorns to build up. And the more they build up the more daunting the task of walking down that path is going to be. Sounds a lot like an email inbox. 

"I went past the field of a sluggard, past the vineyard of someone who has no sense; thorns had come up everywhere, the ground was covered with weeds, and the stone wall was in ruins." [Prov 24:30-31]

Thorns again. The reminder of Genesis 3. Without sweat the weeds grow. The sluggard is not actively seeking to do wrong. He's just not taking care of what he's been given to bring good fruit out of it. And so (like Israel in Isaiah 5) there's going to be thorns rather than grapes.

What's going on in the heart of this inactivity? The description of the sluggard in Proverbs 26 is revealing. It's not simply sloth. 

"A sluggard says, “There’s a lion in the road,
   a fierce lion roaming the streets!”
As a door turns on its hinges
   so a sluggard turns on his bed.
A sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
   he is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth.
A sluggard is wiser in his own eyes
   than seven people who answer discreetly."

Verse 13: There's an retreat-anxiety cycle. As Glen Scivener and others have pointed out, when you fear and retreat, that increases your fear which causes you to retreat further. The deeper you go into the cave of isolation, the more your imagination catastrophises.

Verse 14: There is movement without progress. This was a surprise for me. The sluggard could be rushing back and forth. Like a door attached to a door frame, swinging back and forth, there could be lots of activity, just nothing is moving forward in growth and fruitfulness.

Verse 15: There is starting without finishing because there's a lack of appetite. Why would anyone put their hand in a bag of crisps and not bring the hand back to their mouth? Why would anyone start a task and not finish it? Lack of a hunger that drives you on (cf. Prov 16:26). 

Verse 16: There is self deception. The most dangerous of all. The sluggard actually believes he is wise, competent, productive. He is like the armchair football coach shouting at the poor decisions of the premiership manager and feeling like he's done a hard afternoon's work. Criticism of others becomes a substitute for personal productivity. 

So how do I escape my sluggardly nature?

"Go to the ant, you sluggard;
   consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
   no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
   and gathers its food at harvest." [Prov 6:6-8]

Notice a few things about the ant:

1. It is incredibly small. What an unexpected, unworldly exhortation to the sluggard: "Consider... the ant". Not, "Be inspired by the impressive achievements of a great man." Rather, "Consider the smallest, the weakest, the one on the ground, under our feet, the one no-one notices." The ant accomplishes incredible feats - lifting things hundreds of times its own weight and building hills millions of times its size - out of weakness. This is gospel paradox, the theology of the cross, the weak things of the world shame the strong (cf Prov 30:24).
2. It is not compelled from outside. The ant is not on a forced march. There is no line manager or punishment system. Rather there is internal compulsion. Willing voluntary sacrifice compelled by heart passions - joy, love, zeal. 
3. It is future orientated. The ant works while it is day. It knows that night is coming when it won't be able to work. And the work is to store something up for the future. It is a sowing in tears now for a happy harvest later. It is preparing a future inheritance. Suffering now, glory later.

Sound like someone you know?

Who can rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ! The sluggard can't save himself from his sluggardly nature. 

• The sluggard is lost deep in the cave of isolation and anxiety and Jesus goes into the cave and grabs hold of us and leads us out of the darkness into his marvellous light. He rescues us from the fear of the lion death and the lion Satan because he has dealt with and defeated them.
• The sluggard is hinged to his bed, fixed, unable to get up. Jesus comes along and says, as he did to the paralytic and the corpse, "Get up!" and with his command goes out the power to obey the command. He lifts us up and puts us on our feet and sends us on our way leaping and jumping.
• The sluggard is apathetic and he's powerless to change. Our hearts are not in our hands. Jesus gives us new affections. His appearing captures our hearts, turns them to himself, warms them up, gives us a driving passion, a compelling love, an energising longing. 
• The sluggard is self-deceived, blind. There's no way out of this blindness without the Lord Jesus coming and putting his hand on our eyes and making us see. And that's what he loves to do - definitively at our conversion but also progressively, he is taking us from seeing people 'like trees walking' to seeing things rightly, seeing ourselves rightly, seeing the future glory rightly, seeing him - the Lord Jesus Christ - more clearly.

O Father, who sustained them,

O Spirit, who inspired,

Saviour, whose love constrained them

to toil with zeal untired,

from cowardice defend us,

from lethargy awake!

Forth on your errands send us

to labour for your sake. Amen